DAMASCUS, 3 March 2008 — Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallem said that a US Navy deployment off the coast of Lebanon threatens security in the region and warned the United States it cannot impose its own solution to the long-running political crisis in Lebanon. “There is a history of American fleet intervention in Lebanon. I think these experiences were not at all useful,” Al-Muallem said.
The planned deployment of at least three warships, announced Thursday, appeared to be aimed at making an American show of strength at a time of increasing international frustration at the volatile political deadlock in Lebanon between the US-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and the Syria and Iran-backed opposition, led by Hezbollah.
State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters that the warships are an important sign of US commitment to security in the region. “It should provide comfort to our friends” and, for US adversaries, “a reminder that we are there.” Al-Muallem said the American military move is counterproductive. “Such a show of force will not be useful and will not lead, as they claim, to security in the region. It is against the security of the region,” he said.
“I say to those Lebanese who are betting on America’s ... muscle flexing off the coast of Lebanon that this is a losing bet,” he added. “America cannot impose a solution in Lebanon as it sees it.”
In Lebanon, the Hezbollah group said the US military move comes after the US failed to impose its hegemony over Lebanon through other political means.
“The slogans of democracy and freedom which Washington preaches seem deceitful and false because they contradict with the diplomacy of warships and muzzles of cannons which hark back to colonial times,” a statement issued by the group’s office said.
At a meeting in Riyadh, the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council insisted on the election of a president by the Lebanese parliament as scheduled on March 11, after 15 earlier sessions were scrapped.
The GCC “stresses the need to eliminate any obstacles to the president of the republic being elected on March 11,” the foreign ministers said in a statement after a closed-door meeting. They underlined their support for the “constitutional institutions” of Lebanon and concern over obstacles to the Arab initiative for Lebanon.
